City-states of the ancient world were one of the first political entities with democratic governance. Part of the democratic process is authorizing individuals to make decisions, holding these individuals accountable, and for these individual to be responsive to the needs of the community (Pitkin, 1957). Today, cities have low levels of democratic participation that hold elected officials accountable and authorize them to have the power to make a decision. At the same time, a majority of the electorate views politicians as beholden to special interests and big-money supporters who corrupt the political system, elections are ineffective at producing real political change, and public officials are more responsive to elites than the average
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One argument to resolve the ever-increasing need for campaign fund-raising, the influence of contributions, and equity in political outcomes is to reinvigorate the public campaign finance system (Miller, 2014). At the national level, public campaign finance is defunct, yet in municipalities, there are various public campaign finance systems in use. Cities are micro-laboratories of democratic providing various structures for increasing equity in political participation and decreasing the policy disparity that exists among affluent groups and average …show more content…
As Stone (1993) notes, the success of elected officials’ policy agendas rests on the capacity to bring together and mobilize resources to govern effectively, which is often related to economic factors. Reform cities’ coalitions, especially in the Southwest, demonstrate that business and commercial mobilization help to promote growth, development, and attract investment. Bridges (1997) comparative study of why city political reforms were successful in the Southwest was due in part to a lack of competition by established political parties--who redistributed resources among various constituencies without any ties to development. Political party machine politics are more effect at mobilizing redistribution coalitions, whereas reformed cities cobble to interest around development policies leaving out the lower class. This is due in part to development and growth strategies that leave little policy space left to promote public service provisions (Bridges, 1997: 218-219; ). The institutionalization and path dependency of catering to pro-growth interests establishes a system with disparities in policy response, skewing city
One argument to resolve the ever-increasing need for campaign fund-raising, the influence of contributions, and equity in political outcomes is to reinvigorate the public campaign finance system (Miller, 2014). At the national level, public campaign finance is defunct, yet in municipalities, there are various public campaign finance systems in use. Cities are micro-laboratories of democratic providing various structures for increasing equity in political participation and decreasing the policy disparity that exists among affluent groups and average …show more content…
As Stone (1993) notes, the success of elected officials’ policy agendas rests on the capacity to bring together and mobilize resources to govern effectively, which is often related to economic factors. Reform cities’ coalitions, especially in the Southwest, demonstrate that business and commercial mobilization help to promote growth, development, and attract investment. Bridges (1997) comparative study of why city political reforms were successful in the Southwest was due in part to a lack of competition by established political parties--who redistributed resources among various constituencies without any ties to development. Political party machine politics are more effect at mobilizing redistribution coalitions, whereas reformed cities cobble to interest around development policies leaving out the lower class. This is due in part to development and growth strategies that leave little policy space left to promote public service provisions (Bridges, 1997: 218-219; ). The institutionalization and path dependency of catering to pro-growth interests establishes a system with disparities in policy response, skewing city